Professor Sue Hartley OBE

Sue joined the University in January 2020 as Vice-President for Research.

She leads on the University’s research activity, including research excellence, the flagship institutes, the Research Excellence Framework (REF), research income and impact. Sue is also the Institutional lead for sustainability. She currently oversees the University’s innovation, partnerships, and commercialisation activities.

Before coming to Sheffield, Sue was Director of the York Environmental Sustainability Institute, a pioneering interdisciplinary research partnership generating solutions to global environmental challenges, at the University of York. She was also the University of York's Research Champion for Environmental Sustainability and Resilience, driving a range of research activities with colleagues from multiple disciplines and external partners.

Sue has served as a trustee of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, as a board member of Natural England, the UK Government’s statutory adviser for the natural environment in England, and as President of the British Ecological Society.

Her research interests include understanding the interactions between organisms exploiting plants, how those interactions are mediated by plant defences, particularly silicon, and how a better understanding of those processes can improve both the sustainability of agriculture and agri-environmental policy.